To assert that "the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null" is really to claim that the great majority of Christians have failed to enter the most natural of human states and have failed to effect between themselves the exact sacrament that Christ instituted to assist them in it.

Understanding why Muslims take fasting so seriously can help us recover our own roots of this ascetical practice — and reconnect to the ancient Christian Desert Fathers who perfected not only fasting but prayer and penance.